Cell Phone Usage Banned At Petrol Pumps

[Plus]

How do you manage to live at all, with all this hazards on every step, like mobile phones causing explosions.

Stop the car before entering the gas station, turn your phone off, then proceed

Well, if you can't think of anything more complex, go ahead.

Peter, you should have never gone to the US - life would be so much simpler.

[peterjackson]

Hey

A question was asked and I answered it to the best of my ability and with a little insight from my professional perspective within the oil industry from many years ago.

If you don't believe me or wish to ignore the information, thats your perogative.

Maybe next time your in America, whist fueling up, you will read the notices on the pumps, they don't use the 'Logo' style sign, maybe they should as it appears many people are unable to read or at least comprehend what they have read.

I can only answer for Hess, Citgo and BP, they all have warning text. I know because I can remember reading the info. whilst waiting for the car to fill up. I can't say 100% that I can remember the text at other outlets although it might have been there.

In the UK it has been on pumps for over 10 years.

Regards

Peter

[britmaveric]

No signs at Citgo - can confirm this just filled up w/Petrol today!!!

[peterjackson]

Hey

Obviously not universal then, my Citgo has them.

We can only speak as we find.

Regards

Peter

[Plus]

A question was asked and I answered it to the best of my ability and with a little insight from my professional perspective within the oil industry from many years ago.

So you are not actually advising to stop the car, turn the phone off, then enter the station?

Your contribution is very useful and very professional indeed, just that towards the end it got a touch of paranoya, which you picked up in the US, so it's not entirely your fault.

I, for one, never knew that an incoming phone call might produce a spark that might ignite benzene fumes. I'll remember that, thanks.

[Phil Conners]

You guys must obviously have missed my prevoius post!

"Myth Busters"

I don't think anyone missed it but "Myth Busters" and "Scientific Method" just don't go together. The issue is not under normal circumstances but the abnormal instance of sparks generated from failed battery, connection or components or even the plastic case picking up a static charge. A good example of an unusual incident was the case of a cell phone catching fire due to faulty batteries. That could certainly create a problem at a fuel pump. These are all extremely low possibilities but one can not say impossible.

The ban on all radio use near mines is due to the explosives that are detonated by radio. They obviously don't want a cell phone set off the explosion by accident. Completely different reason.

[peterjackson]

Hey

To PLUS, no not paranoid, even after living for a short while in the USA, just giving the info. as it is.

To Madsere, although the RF reason you put forward is a valid one it has nothing to do with intrinsically safe mine equipment. The main reason that devices in mines have to be INTRINSICALLY SAFE, has nothing to do with radio frequency transmissions. Intrincically safe RF equipment is manufactured for mines and by their very definition TX & RX RF, but cause no mine hazard as they are intrinsically safe and are operated in a controlled RF zone.

I agree with you that in an area where RF is used to trigger an explosion, then any RF ban would be in order, if it was on the correct wave.

Regards

Peter

[Rooo]

Wouldn't it be more probable to have an explosion from a loose terminal on your car battery sparking or the act of actually starting your car? Or any electrical component in your car?

[penzman]

Is the ban lifted after 10 pm?

[Momenthai]

Last time I was in Phuket I got a cab to the airport and the driver stopped at the petrol station to get petrol....he decided to put petrol in the car with the engine still running. I was sitting in the back of the car and was not happy about it so told him so, but as he was only putting in Bt150 worth by the time I told him he'd finished.

Surely that's dangerous isn't it?

[wilko]

You guys must obviously have missed my prevoius post!

"Myth Busters" from Discovery Channel recently tried everything they could to ignite gasolin gasses using a cell phone. Phones were put into a box full of gasoline fumes and the phone called from another phone. Different models and setups were tried, even very old and partly disassembled phones, and they had to give up in the end.

It's a MYTH and it's BUSTED.

read PJ's posting directly above yours.....Myth Busters method is not necessarily how an explosion can happen....

[britmaveric]

What I've read - normally occured w/women who:

Left car running

Went to pump petrol then went back into the car

Static electricity discharge caused a spark that caused an explosion, nought to do with mobiles.

[The Dan Sai Kid]

Someone should tell the attendant who filled up my car today - he had the pump in one hand and was talking on the phone with the other

[wilko]

Where I used to live in Rome trhere was a row of petrol pumps on an island, with a tramline go ing past and the attendant would smoke whilst filling your car....I wonder if it's still there.

[stumonster]

fuel stations are designed to minimise the chance of LEL ( lower explosive level ) situations occuring. ( high roof and full breezeway ) .

once conditions have passed the LEL many things can cause ignition ( eg: you drop your mobile phone onto the concrete causing a short inside etc )

In industry , working in solvent plants , refineries gas plants etc , all electrical equipment installed or used must be ceterfied for the zone it is used in . Plant areas are zoned by standard calculations of the risk of LEL. Pneumatics used to very popular because they had a very small risk of producing any ignition.

if service stations were subject to international industrial standard operating proceedures for hazardous areas , the average member of the public would not be filling up their own car.

[Phano]

Cell phones are a major cause of accidents, thru usage in the wrong places. Due to the nature of fuels, it is best to be alert and 100 % aware of the goings and comings at a forecourt for your own safety.

[elkangorito]

Having been a Radio Technician in the Royal Australian Air Force, I can tell you that there IS a risk of creating a spark, if using UHF equipment in a 'hazardous' environment.

This has little to to do with 'power' but more to do with 'energy level'. RF (radio frequencies) energy levels increase with the frequency, disregarding the power output. Why do you think that you are using a 'microwave oven' & not a HF (high frequency - between 3 & 30 Mehahertz) oven? It's simple...600 watts of HF will not heat your food due to it's low 'energy level' characteristic but 600 watts of 'microwaves' will. Mobile telephones do operate within the low 'microwave' area (about 900 MHz) & as such, are 'high energy' devices. Haven't you seen the sparks fly when you place metallic objects in your microwave oven? Granted, your mobile phone has a reduced transmission frequency & a reduced power output compared to that of a microwave oven but the same thing can happen with a mobile phone, given the right circumstances. Mind you, these circumstances are very small but they do exist. I have seen a friend of my'n get radiation burns to his ears/head because he wears metal framed glasses, which happened to touch low energy RF (3 MHz).

As for believing 'Myth Busters', great show but quite unscientific. I only believe a quarter of what they purport to 'bust'. Even then, I am sceptical.

When in Thailand, don't rely upon the 'common sense' of others...it doesn't exist. Instead & if you value your life at the bouser, turn off your engine, grab hold of unpainted metal as you exit the car (discharge yourself), TURN OFF your mobile telephone OR leave it in the car, do not smoke whilst filling the tank. Very bloody simple.

High Octane fuel has a 'flame front' of between 200 & 400 feet per second...VERY DANGEROUS.

[Gary A]

Sometime back there was a law suit against Nokia. Someone tried to make a call and the phone caught on fire and burned the guys hand. The suit was thrown out when it was discovered that the guy had replaced the original battery with a counterfeit. Warnings were then issued to use only OEM batteries.

[paulfr]

I hear a lot of talk and speculation but no facts or statistics here.

Anyone know if even a single person has died or been seriously injured at a gas station anywhere in the world as a direct result of a cell phone (battery spark or RF energy) and not from static electricity ?

[Crushdepth]

I'm not sure if this is relevant but when I worked on a ship about ten years ago, we were not allowed to use the radio during refueling due to the risk of fire (the antennae was the thing they were worried about, not static). It was taken very seriously.

I would imagine that the radio was a bit more powerful than a mobile phone though.

[wilko]

I would have thought that it has been argued quite convincingly that this can happen; the circumstances and mechanisms are quite plain, how often this occurs and with what probability I would have thought was pretty much irrelevant. Many safety prcautions are what they say...PRE -cautions....they are to prevent an accident (or incident) ever happening....why wait until it happens to find out?

It is people's inability to predict, calculate or perceive risk that leads to accidents...."it'll never happen to me" etc....just look at the general standard of road safety and driving in Thailand and see the results of the "if-something-bad-is-going-to-happen-it'll-happen" way of thought.

Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't....and doing something in a way that an accident CAN'T happen is a lot better than doing it a way that HOPES it won't happen

[bazmlb]

can diesel fumes ignite so easily ? or is it just petrol/gasoline ?

The flash point of diesel is considerably higher temperature, you could through a lit match into diesel and it wont ignite

[Nikkijah]

I hear a lot of talk and speculation but no facts or statistics here.

Anyone know if even a single person has died or been seriously injured at a gas station anywhere in the world as a direct result of a cell phone (battery spark or RF energy) and not from static electricity ?

A news article from CBS network about a cell phone & a gas station...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/14/...ain617547.shtml

[Charma]

I always find it interesting to consider our views on "risk". Of all the billions of times that people have filled up at petrol stations, we probably have a handful of people that have actually recieved some burns (minor in the case of the above article). That represents a miniscule risk. Yet the chances of getting cancer from smoking or getting liver disease from alcohol are much much higher - but many people are happy to carry on drinking and smoking. The risk averse culture is now truly ingrained in the west and has more to do with fear of law suits than anyone feeling unsafe. This culture is now starting to arrive in SEA and I bet the lawyers are rubbing their hands in anticpation. Life is about risk - it's what makes it interesting. If you really wanted to avoid risk, you just wouldn't leave your house. But then again, you will probably burn to death after your toaster sets on fire!

[elkangorito]

I always find it interesting to consider our views on "risk". Of all the billions of times that people have filled up at petrol stations, we probably have a handful of people that have actually recieved some burns (minor in the case of the above article). That represents a miniscule risk. Yet the chances of getting cancer from smoking or getting liver disease from alcohol are much much higher - but many people are happy to carry on drinking and smoking. The risk averse culture is now truly ingrained in the west and has more to do with fear of law suits than anyone feeling unsafe. This culture is now starting to arrive in SEA and I bet the lawyers are rubbing their hands in anticpation. Life is about risk - it's what makes it interesting. If you really wanted to avoid risk, you just wouldn't leave your house. But then again, you will probably burn to death after your toaster sets on fire!

I absolutely, totally & utmostly agree. Never truer words have been spoken.

Unfortunately, "fear" will destroy the LOS just like it has done in the West. I hope this takes a long time to happen.

[wilko]

I always find it interesting to consider our views on "risk". Of all the billions of times that people have filled up at petrol stations, we probably have a handful of people that have actually recieved some burns (minor in the case of the above article). That represents a miniscule risk. Yet the chances of getting cancer from smoking or getting liver disease from alcohol are much much higher - but many people are happy to carry on drinking and smoking. The risk averse culture is now truly ingrained in the west and has more to do with fear of law suits than anyone feeling unsafe. This culture is now starting to arrive in SEA and I bet the lawyers are rubbing their hands in anticpation. Life is about risk - it's what makes it interesting. If you really wanted to avoid risk, you just wouldn't leave your house. But then again, you will probably burn to death after your toaster sets on fire!

Actually this is quite a good example of how people can't assess risk...out of one corner of your mouth you claim billions of uses of gas stations and then out of the other corner you compare it with a constant bombardment by an individual of him/herself with a toxic substance......the risk at a petrol station is intermittent but the risk applies to one's body is a continuous build-up. One can result in instant injury for numbers of innocent bystanders, the other is (largely) a personal attack on one's own life.....others affected are limited to bereaved relatives etc. the nature and results are of a different nature…like chalk and cheese.

Safety regulations on boats and planes are there because IF something goes wrong the results can be catastrophic….more so than one person drinking himself to death.

I've included this posting by Autonomous Unit from a posting on ghosts as it underlines how misguided people can be in much more succinct terms than I ever could...

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?s=...ndpost&p=815816

The point to consider about evaluating coincidence is that we are usually not prepared to evaluate things from an objective, statistically-meaningful standpoint. We make at least two common mistakes: first, we are usually biased and remember "positive" occurrences more than "negative", so things seem to happen more than they really do, relative to the background level of random sh*t going on; second, we make the understandably self-centered observation that what happens to us is special... we do not properly delineate the boundaries of the "experiment". The point to consider about evaluating coincidence is that we are usually not prepared to evaluate things from an objective, statistically-meaningful standpoint. We make at least two common mistakes: first, we are usually biased and remember "positive" occurrences more than "negative", so things seem to happen more than they really do, relative to the background level of random sh*t going on; second, we make the understandably self-centered observation that what happens to us is special... we do not properly delineate the boundaries of the "experiment".

A statistician's view would have to look at all occurrences of apparent coincidences and false positives (people having a "funny feeling" that doesn't actually pan out with any coinciding event of note; but they would also have to look at a population and not an individual. This is due to a variant of the birthday paradox wherein things that seem unlikely from a particularly person's perspective are actually quite likely to happen to someone within a larger group. So a skeptic looks at all spooky moments and false spooky moments and decides whether they happen more than can be attributable to chance.

To play devil's advocate, I would attribute your door-knocking experience to a waking dream. I've had dreams where I incorporate sounds from the waking world, and also just-waking moments where I "sense" the last sounds of a dream, such as my wife's voice even though she has already left for work, or the sound of a vehicle in my dream. Similarly, I could attribute some hair-raising experiences to the cultural expectations and/or suggestibility of people. Is it a spooky presence, or just a draft through a leaky wall? Hanging around with paranoid and jumpy people will usually make you a bit jumpy too...

Things like having an intuition and then correlating it to your cousin's friend's aunt are great examples of distorted analysis. Kind of like the "7 degrees of Kevin Bacon", you have to look at all the relationships with a similar strength, multiplied by all the distinct or meaningful events in all these persons' lives, and then decide if anyone is really predicting or sensing any of this at a rate above the noise level. That is the analytical criteria: that these experiences happen more often than can be explained by chance events coinciding with chance sensations.

Note, I am not trying to convert anyone's beliefs, but adding to the earlier skeptical statement since an interest in a more analytical point of view was expressed. A purposeless, uncaring universe is not everyone's cup of tea.

[Plus]

turn off your engine, grab hold of unpainted metal as you exit the car (discharge yourself), turn off your mobile telephone or leave it in the car, do not smoke whilst filling the tank.

Will it ever stop??? There's no end insight to these safety precautions.

In Thailand people are not allowed to fill tanks themselves. That's the best safety precaution you can have for them.

Leaving engine running was recommended in one of the local newspapers. The reason was that after a long drive the engine can get very hot and keeping it running will also keep fans cooling it down. The question was specifically about highways.

[bazmlb]

Filling up whilst smoking, talking on the phone, rubbing your polyester jumper and drinking whiskey all at the same time is probably still less dangerous than driving on the road during songkran

anyway i dont think the banks have loans available for purchasing fuel yet, so soon none of us will be able to fill up.

Edited July 18, 2006 by bazmlb

[Charma]

I always find it interesting to consider our views on "risk". Of all the billions of times that people have filled up at petrol stations, we probably have a handful of people that have actually recieved some burns (minor in the case of the above article). That represents a miniscule risk. Yet the chances of getting cancer from smoking or getting liver disease from alcohol are much much higher - but many people are happy to carry on drinking and smoking. The risk averse culture is now truly ingrained in the west and has more to do with fear of law suits than anyone feeling unsafe. This culture is now starting to arrive in SEA and I bet the lawyers are rubbing their hands in anticpation. Life is about risk - it's what makes it interesting. If you really wanted to avoid risk, you just wouldn't leave your house. But then again, you will probably burn to death after your toaster sets on fire!

Actually this is quite a good example of how people can't assess risk...out of one corner of your mouth you claim billions of uses of gas stations and then out of the other corner you compare it with a constant bombardment by an individual of him/herself with a toxic substance......the risk at a petrol station is intermittent but the risk applies to one's body is a continuous build-up. One can result in instant injury for numbers of innocent bystanders, the other is (largely) a personal attack on one's own life.....others affected are limited to bereaved relatives etc. the nature and results are of a different nature…like chalk and cheese.

Safety regulations on boats and planes are there because IF something goes wrong the results can be catastrophic….more so than one person drinking himself to death.

I've included this posting by Autonomous Unit from a posting on ghosts as it underlines how misguided people can be in much more succinct terms than I ever could...

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?s=...ndpost&p=815816

The point to consider about evaluating coincidence is that we are usually not prepared to evaluate things from an objective, statistically-meaningful standpoint. We make at least two common mistakes: first, we are usually biased and remember "positive" occurrences more than "negative", so things seem to happen more than they really do, relative to the background level of random sh*t going on; second, we make the understandably self-centered observation that what happens to us is special... we do not properly delineate the boundaries of the "experiment". The point to consider about evaluating coincidence is that we are usually not prepared to evaluate things from an objective, statistically-meaningful standpoint. We make at least two common mistakes: first, we are usually biased and remember "positive" occurrences more than "negative", so things seem to happen more than they really do, relative to the background level of random sh*t going on; second, we make the understandably self-centered observation that what happens to us is special... we do not properly delineate the boundaries of the "experiment".

A statistician's view would have to look at all occurrences of apparent coincidences and false positives (people having a "funny feeling" that doesn't actually pan out with any coinciding event of note; but they would also have to look at a population and not an individual. This is due to a variant of the birthday paradox wherein things that seem unlikely from a particularly person's perspective are actually quite likely to happen to someone within a larger group. So a skeptic looks at all spooky moments and false spooky moments and decides whether they happen more than can be attributable to chance.

To play devil's advocate, I would attribute your door-knocking experience to a waking dream. I've had dreams where I incorporate sounds from the waking world, and also just-waking moments where I "sense" the last sounds of a dream, such as my wife's voice even though she has already left for work, or the sound of a vehicle in my dream. Similarly, I could attribute some hair-raising experiences to the cultural expectations and/or suggestibility of people. Is it a spooky presence, or just a draft through a leaky wall? Hanging around with paranoid and jumpy people will usually make you a bit jumpy too...

Things like having an intuition and then correlating it to your cousin's friend's aunt are great examples of distorted analysis. Kind of like the "7 degrees of Kevin Bacon", you have to look at all the relationships with a similar strength, multiplied by all the distinct or meaningful events in all these persons' lives, and then decide if anyone is really predicting or sensing any of this at a rate above the noise level. That is the analytical criteria: that these experiences happen more often than can be explained by chance events coinciding with chance sensations.

Note, I am not trying to convert anyone's beliefs, but adding to the earlier skeptical statement since an interest in a more analytical point of view was expressed. A purposeless, uncaring universe is not everyone's cup of tea.

What? I am not sure that this posting reference is remotely relevant to the post I made - it is about coincidences.

Risk, in the context of my post, is the chance or posssiblity of loss or injury. I was merely pointing out that risk is a part of life and that we (humans) are not particularly objective when we think about it. We do lots of things that carry a far higher risk of injury than using a phone in a petrol station. Riding a bike in Thailand must be one of the most riskiest things you can do, but many people do - wearing sandals and shorts! The point I was making was that action by companies (petrol stations for example) to reduce risk is driven not by their love of mankind, but by a desire to hang on to their cash. If (or when) compensation culture and litigation arrives in Thailand, US style, you will see a massive change in risk assessment and preventative measures. Then we can all be happy that when we drink a cup of coffee from McDonalds, there will be a warning on the cup that tells us to be careful because it is hot!

[wilko]

I always find it interesting to consider our views on "risk". Of all the billions of times that people have filled up at petrol stations, we probably have a handful of people that have actually recieved some burns (minor in the case of the above article). That represents a miniscule risk. Yet the chances of getting cancer from smoking or getting liver disease from alcohol are much much higher - but many people are happy to carry on drinking and smoking. The risk averse culture is now truly ingrained in the west and has more to do with fear of law suits than anyone feeling unsafe. This culture is now starting to arrive in SEA and I bet the lawyers are rubbing their hands in anticpation. Life is about risk - it's what makes it interesting. If you really wanted to avoid risk, you just wouldn't leave your house. But then again, you will probably burn to death after your toaster sets on fire!

Actually this is quite a good example of how people can't assess risk...out of one corner of your mouth you claim billions of uses of gas stations and then out of the other corner you compare it with a constant bombardment by an individual of him/herself with a toxic substance......the risk at a petrol station is intermittent but the risk applies to one's body is a continuous build-up. One can result in instant injury for numbers of innocent bystanders, the other is (largely) a personal attack on one's own life.....others affected are limited to bereaved relatives etc. the nature and results are of a different nature…like chalk and cheese.

Safety regulations on boats and planes are there because IF something goes wrong the results can be catastrophic….more so than one person drinking himself to death.

I've included this posting by Autonomous Unit from a posting on ghosts as it underlines how misguided people can be in much more succinct terms than I ever could...

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?s=...ndpost&p=815816

The point to consider about evaluating coincidence is that we are usually not prepared to evaluate things from an objective, statistically-meaningful standpoint. We make at least two common mistakes: first, we are usually biased and remember "positive" occurrences more than "negative", so things seem to happen more than they really do, relative to the background level of random sh*t going on; second, we make the understandably self-centered observation that what happens to us is special... we do not properly delineate the boundaries of the "experiment". The point to consider about evaluating coincidence is that we are usually not prepared to evaluate things from an objective, statistically-meaningful standpoint. We make at least two common mistakes: first, we are usually biased and remember "positive" occurrences more than "negative", so things seem to happen more than they really do, relative to the background level of random sh*t going on; second, we make the understandably self-centered observation that what happens to us is special... we do not properly delineate the boundaries of the "experiment".

A statistician's view would have to look at all occurrences of apparent coincidences and false positives (people having a "funny feeling" that doesn't actually pan out with any coinciding event of note; but they would also have to look at a population and not an individual. This is due to a variant of the birthday paradox wherein things that seem unlikely from a particularly person's perspective are actually quite likely to happen to someone within a larger group. So a skeptic looks at all spooky moments and false spooky moments and decides whether they happen more than can be attributable to chance.

To play devil's advocate, I would attribute your door-knocking experience to a waking dream. I've had dreams where I incorporate sounds from the waking world, and also just-waking moments where I "sense" the last sounds of a dream, such as my wife's voice even though she has already left for work, or the sound of a vehicle in my dream. Similarly, I could attribute some hair-raising experiences to the cultural expectations and/or suggestibility of people. Is it a spooky presence, or just a draft through a leaky wall? Hanging around with paranoid and jumpy people will usually make you a bit jumpy too...

Things like having an intuition and then correlating it to your cousin's friend's aunt are great examples of distorted analysis. Kind of like the "7 degrees of Kevin Bacon", you have to look at all the relationships with a similar strength, multiplied by all the distinct or meaningful events in all these persons' lives, and then decide if anyone is really predicting or sensing any of this at a rate above the noise level. That is the analytical criteria: that these experiences happen more often than can be explained by chance events coinciding with chance sensations.

Note, I am not trying to convert anyone's beliefs, but adding to the earlier skeptical statement since an interest in a more analytical point of view was expressed. A purposeless, uncaring universe is not everyone's cup of tea.

What? I am not sure that this posting reference is remotely relevant to the post I made - it is about coincidences.

Risk, in the context of my post, is the chance or posssiblity of loss or injury. I was merely pointing out that risk is a part of life and that we (humans) are not particularly objective when we think about it. We do lots of things that carry a far higher risk of injury than using a phone in a petrol station. Riding a bike in Thailand must be one of the most riskiest things you can do, but many people do - wearing sandals and shorts! The point I was making was that action by companies (petrol stations for example) to reduce risk is driven not by their love of mankind, but by a desire to hang on to their cash. If (or when) compensation culture and litigation arrives in Thailand, US style, you will see a massive change in risk assessment and preventative measures. Then we can all be happy that when we drink a cup of coffee from McDonalds, there will be a warning on the cup that tells us to be careful because it is hot!

It's about your perception of reality, what is likely, and what is real and what is within your control...